Chania! The jewel of Crete from antiquity till today… I find the direction to the old town by following the signs and other tourists. As the religious government of Turkey fuels the civil war going on between the military/police and the Kurdish self-defenders, tourism is deflated all around the coastal line. In Greece on the other hand, you hear numerous languages wherever you turn, tourism is in explosion! The first impressive structure that I come across is the Cathedral of Chania or 3 Martyrs church, built in Venetian time, turned into a soap factory under Ottoman rule. What is interesting is that the Ottoman Pasha’s child fell into a well and he prayed for Virgin Mary to save him with a promise of returning the church back to the Christian community! The kid lives and here we are able to enjoy a church from Venetian era.
I recall a very sweet moment in Chania from 2010, when I
had had coffee at a kafennia, coffee shops mainly for men in Greece. It was so
quiet then with nobody around, in November, except for a few locals. It was in
this little square, I recall very clearly. I take a tour around the church to
locate that lovely, rustic kafennia, with no success. All shops around both
sides of the church are restaurants speaking to tourists. I wonder what
happened to the kafennia owner. Did he retire finally seeing that his place
needed “modernization”, did he sell his place to somebody else with “better”
ideas? One little loss from my experience of this town hurts my heart a little.
I wish I could track him down, most likely not this time, having just a few
hours to spend in Chania today and tomorrow. I send him my loving kindness
thoughts and wish him “na eistai kala filos mou” (with good health my friend).
This church being from the 13th century has very
elaborate ornamentation inside including Italian paintings from the mid-last
millennium. The next building is just a few meters down, which looks like a
church. Sure enough it does turn out to be the Venetian Monastery of Saint Francis, which is
now housing the Archeological Museum of Chania, famous with its coin
collections from all over Greece with its city-states to all areas the
Greek/Byzantine Empires controlled as far as to Pontus, in the middle of the Black
Sea coast in Turkey. I notice Greeks prefer to call the lands on Anatolia “Asia
Minor”, perhaps just to mention the geographic location without ownership…
For each coin collection there is a map displaying where they have been excavated
I
bump into a group of adults mixed with lots of school aged children. The guide
talks to them both in Greek and Italian. They may be Greek kids going to an
Italian school is my resolve. The guide is a very effective teacher using all
her typical Greek animations with gestures, mimics, and voice to get her point
across! And the kids are very much into it, how lovely. After an hour at the museum, I am back on the street and
soon I am in front of the Ottoman mosque on the waterfront, dedicated to Küçük
Hassan Pasha, the first Ottoman military governor of Chania. It was the first
mosque built in Crete after the Ottoman
conquest of Chania
in 1649.
The handcrafts art exhibition at the Kucuk Hasan Pasa Mosque, now an exhibition hall
Since I arrived in Chania, I was joyed with
the subtle feeling that I would eventually reach the water, meaning the Aegean.
In these parts, one has that constant feeling, in a minute or an hour or a day,
the water is waiting for him/her. I had that feeling as long as I lived in
Izmir until 16 years of age. When I went to Wisconsin as an exchange student,
for a while, I lived with this feeling of incompleteness, of something missing.
I discovered in a few months what was missing: None of the paths I took in that
town, and it was a small one, Waterford, WI, took me to the water, to any water
as a matter of fact. In Iowa, at least when I miss being near a body of water,
I go to McBride state park, especially in late afternoon, walk along the water,
watch the beautiful sunset, and feel as if I am in Izmir by the waterfront
watching one of the most beautiful sunsets one can ever watch… I am back to
that feeling in Crete and truly, neither Rethymno nor Chania has failed me in
my expectation so far!
I enter the mosque, wondering whether my attire is
appropriate or not, but no need to worry. They are also using the remains of
Ottomans as museums just like the Turks’ attitude to the Greek churches all
over Turkey. Those churches that are used by minimal number of Christians
living in Istanbul and Izmir perhaps are open by appointment almost only to
their known congregation: I never saw a practicing church open in my 38 years
in Turkey. In a way, the ethnic cleansing on both sides of the water (the
Aegean), there remained no need for mosques or churches to worship in. The
people were gone to distant lands they didn’t know. They had to suffer through
discrimination against them, putting up with condescending nicknames such as
“gavur” (infidel) or “greek seed” or “turko seed”. I am pleased to see that
there is a handcrafts exhibition, which is very becoming to the bare walls of
the mosque, the mostly square/rectangular frames creating a sharp contrast with
the round domes of the past.
I get out of the mosque/museum. To the right is the
Venetian dock warehouses, to the left is the Venetian Castillo and across from
me is the light house. I head to the right. First I need a cup of coffee,
somehow in Crete, I can’t wake up fully without “kafe Hellenica”! I start
chatting with my waiter in Greek, he is tolerant and patient with my efforts.
Once I place my order, I start enjoying the serene beauty of the water
surrounded with hundreds of years of history. Chania’s “harbor” is so much like
Fokai in Turkey, an hour north of Izmir on the western coast, one of the
reasons why I like Chania better than any town in Crete. It is also where my
roots are from. Who knows if we will ever find out where exactly our people
came from in or around Chania. My oldest brother is working on information
gathering before all the elderly dies away extinguishing any possibility of
connection with the land we came from.
Just in front of the dock warehouse is a boat, on which
is a man trimming sponges that he had caught (I assume). I ask him whether I
can take a picture of him in Greek. He accepts it with a hand gesture that
tells me “Why not, go ahead, I don’t care”. On his face is a smile of subtle
pride and pleasure. I ask him what his name is as I take the few steps down to
the pier to get closer to him. His name is Alvarodis or something close to
that. He asks my name. As I answer him, a young man comes out of the cabin, smiling.
We start chatting. I learn that they are from the Twelve Islands archipelago,
Kalimnos is their island. Of course the next question is where I am from. I
give them the full spiel of living in America, born in Turkey, but with roots
from Chania now in fluent Greek since I learned this paragraph really well!
Their faces light up, and tell me that their island is right across from Bodrum
and that they go to Bodrum often.
Old and new hand in hand in the use of locals and tourists alike in Chania
Last time I was here, the warehouses at the far end of
the harbor were vacant and run down. I’d like to see what is going on now. The
one to the right became “maritime museum”, good. The one on the left became a
café. The one in the middle has some kind of handcrafts exhibition, but more
interesting than that is an old man, perhaps in his 80s or 90s sitting at a
table and watching live music on TV, which is a classical Turkish art music
piece played against an Aigia Sofia church/museum background! The music is so
lively and stimulating, I almost want to dance and leave this man with a most
unforgettable memory! Unfortunately, I am not that adventurous. Instead
I ask him what kind of music that is. He says he doesn’t know and lists for me “It
could be “Indian, Greek, Macedonian, Turkish, Bulgari…” He doesn’t know what
the background is. Eventually he gets interested in me and asks me where I am
from. After he hears my story, he invites me to sit on the second seat in front
of his table. His name is Haramboli.
Doors and hands of Chania very much like in Rehtymno
He asks me the names of my grandparents,
meaning their family names. I tell him, that much I know. He says something to
the effect of “it rings a bell, but it’s been so many years. Certainly, he
wasn’t born when the population exchanges took place, which is known as
catastrophe in Greece. I wonder why in Turkey this catastrophic event is known
as only “exchange” but in Crete it is defined with what it really was a
catastrophe. Another question for social anthropologists to answer. I take
leave with warm feelings for this elderly man, perhaps he might help my
brothers when they visit Chania in September. After walking on the Light Tower wavebreak to the middle,
I complete my tour on the waterfront to the Castillo and end my visit of
historic places in Chania. I choose a backstreet restaurant called Tamam, for
my late lunch and order a rabbit dish, first time in my life. My waiter is
worried that I will be under the sun in a little bit. I don’t worry about it,
the table I choose is the only one with a view of the Aegean down the street. I
will be comfortable in the company of the sun as long as I can keep the blue shimmering
in the harbor before my eyes.
The patch of water I can look at from Tamam restaurant
I must say, the rabbit dish is my least favorite
dish of all foods that I had in Crete so far. Better to leave poor rabbits
alone. However, my friend Sofia will tell me that rabbit in fact is one of the staple foods in Crete and she cooks a very tasty rabbit dish. I guess, I will have to try hers before making a final decision. Now is the time to head back to Rethymno to catch another sunset after which I will pick up my rental car to
start exploring parts of the northern coast that I could not without a car.
Argiropouli, famous with its authentic Cretan country life and cuisine and other
small villages will be part of that exploration.
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| Rethymno sunset is unforgettable every night |
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